


Portraiture

by abigail89



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Comedy, Post-War, Romance, The Quidditch Pitch: Eternity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-25
Updated: 2007-11-25
Packaged: 2018-10-26 13:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10788009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abigail89/pseuds/abigail89
Summary: Harry has a first conversation with Severus Snape's and Albus Dumbledore's portraits in the headmasters' office at Hogwarts.





	Portraiture

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** Written for the LJ/IJ comm 'Snape after DH'. We felt Snape didn't get his due in the book, so the fest served to correct that oversight.  Check out the wonderful stories!

  
Author's notes: Many thanks to my dear magicofisis for the beta, for tidying things up. This is the first part of Harry's return to Hogwarts at the behest of Headmistress McGonagall. The second part will be Harry's private conversation with Severus Snape's portrait. It will not be as easy or as clean.  


* * *

*~*

“Oh, Mister Potter, there you are!” Minerva McGonagall exclaimed, rushing to greet him in the entrance hall of Hogwarts Castle. “I’m so pleased you were able to come today.

“Good afternoon, Professor,” Harry said warmly, taking her hand. “How is everything?”

“Just fine, everything is fine. Repairs to the castle are on schedule. We’ve restored the magical protections”—she swept her hands over the mostly completely rebuilt west wall of Hogwarts Castle that had been destroyed on that fateful day—“mostly for the peace of mind of the parents. Thanks to your good work, we aren’t terribly concerned with extraordinary security measures these days.”

“But it’s always a necessity,” Harry replied in a professional tone. “Just because there aren’t many Death Eaters running about, you still need to protect the castle.”

“Oh yes, yes, of course,” the headmistress replied. “Security is our top priority. What I mean to say is that we all feel immeasurably safer now that…Voldemort is gone.”

Harry smiled. Minerva McGonagall was one of the bravest witches he knew, and yet even she still hesitated when saying his name.

And she had over the last year shown to be the most committed and steadfast head of Hogwarts School ever. Almost single-handedly, she was directing the repairs and long-needed renovations to Hogwarts ever carried out. Many of the repairs could be done magically, but many others still needed to be done with little magic and mostly technical skill, such as the rebuilding of the stone walls and staircases. He didn’t understand all the details, but it sounded quite impressive.

“Professor—I mean, Headmistress,” Harry began.

“Please, call me Minerva, Harry,” she said briskly. “I do believe we’ve both earned the right to be a bit more informal in private.”

Harry looked on her in surprise. “I-I’d like that, um, M-Minerva,” he managed to stammer.

“Good. Between you and me, the title ‘headmistress’ sounds a bit tarty.”

He bit back an involuntary giggle with a cough, and grinned. “Um…your owl wasn’t very clear about why you needed me to visit today.”

“Oh! Oh, yes! Thank you for reminding me.” They stopped outside the entrance to the headmaster’s office—her office now, Harry reminded himself. “Yes, well, there’s a wee bit of problem with Severus Snape’s portrait. It’s quite disturbing.” She paused, looking at him intently. “You look very smart in your Auror robes.” She brushed imaginary lint from his shoulder.

Had he not know her better, he would’ve thought her comment and touching him odd. But he knew she’d always looked out for his best interests. She was tough, and fair, but under the stern Scottish exterior she had quite a soft-spot. She, probably more than anyone, had an inkling about what he had experienced during his first eleven years with his mother’s relatives. It made him feel a lot better that she never had to ask for details; she just _knew_.

“Thank you,” Harry replied. “But could you—“

“Oh, I’ll just let you see.”

She turned and gave the password to the gargoyle on duty, “Fizzing Whizbees!”

_Some things just don’t change,_ Harry thought.

“As I said, Severus Snape’s portrait, well…” Professor McGonagall said as they stepped onto the spiraling staircase. “Ever since you had Mr. Thomas paint and install it…well, it’s acted strangely out of character.”

“Is he smiling?” Harry asked. They had reached the door.

Minerva snorted. “Hardly. It’s just that the Severus Snape I knew hardly ever said much during his lifetime, even to the staff. He and I got on cordially enough, but now he’s—“

She threw open the door to the office and at once Harry caught the low rumble of muttering and swearing. “He’s causing all of the portraits so much unrest.”

Harry walked to the wall where the new portrait of Severus Snape, the last, late Headmaster and hero of the last confrontation with evil, hung. When Harry had commissioned the portrait from Dean Thomas, he knew it would be different from the others. Dean wasn’t a classically trained portrait artist. In fact Dean had protested he wasn’t an artist at all. But Harry insisted. “You knew him as well as I did. Draw him the way you remember him.” And Dean did: he captured perfectly the scowl, the curtain of long, greasy hair; the deep furrow above his eyebrows; the shining disinterest in the fathomless black eyes; the hook nose that gave him a more than passing resemblance to a caricature of a vampire. The style wasn’t Picasso-esque, but it wasn’t Rembrandt-like either. It was more sketch-like, shaded in broad strokes rather than intricately detailed.

But one detail on the portrait Dean seemed to feature were Snape’s hands—they were strongly shaped, perfectly formed; the fingers, elegantly long. Seems Dean had noticed the same thing Harry had, that Snape had some dead sexy features.

Harry peered up at the portrait. “Harry! How good to see you, my boy.”

“Professor Dumbledore!” Harry exclaimed, looking at the neighboring portrait. “It’s good to see you too. Looks like they put Snape next to you.”

“Yes.” Albus Dumbledore’s perfect likeness fairly beamed. “It seems that he bothered most of the other portraits terribly, even Phineas Nigellus. But I have always enjoyed the intellectual sparing with Severus, so I insisted Minerva place him close to me.”

“I thought you deserved some respite, Albus,” Minerva said.

“Nonsense!” The old headmaster’s blue eyes twinkled Harry was amazed to see. “I have always enjoyed having Severus nearby to…”

“STOP IT!” Snape’s portrait face screwed up into a hideous sneer. “JUST STOP IT!”

Harry was taken aback. Yes, he’d seen that look of abject disgust cross the man’s…well, ugly features before many times, especially directed at himself. But the bellowing—that was definitely new. Snape sneered, he belittled, he had an overly developed vocabulary of insults and jabs. But the words had always been delivered in a low, menacing tone.

“I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS ANY LONGER! I INSIST YOU REMOVE MY PORTRAIT! INSTANTLY!”

“But why, my dear fellow?” Arwyn Dillys from across the room inquired. “You were a bona fide holder of the office….”

“I WAS NEVER A PROPER HEADMASTER OF THIS ….”

“Well, there’s no need to shout!” Phineas Nigellus Black sniffed loudly. “As a fellow member of the Noble House of Slytherin, kindly lower your voice, young man, so we may discuss your discontent rationally.” He stuck a finger in his ear and wiggled it.

“A very good suggestion, Phineas,” Dumbledore replied. “Severus, really, there is no need…”

“SHUT UP, YOU BARMY CODGER! YOU, OF ALL PEOPLE SHOULD REALIZE THAT I DO NOT ….”

All of a sudden Snape’s voice went silent though his painted mouth was still moving. Minerva McGonagall lowered her wand.

“That is quite enough out of you, Severus Snape,” she said steely. “Your disrespectful tone and words in this place are unacceptable. Do you understand me?”

Amazingly, Snape’s mouth snapped shut and he gave a barely perceptible nod of his grease-shiny hair. _Perhaps Dean overdid it on the hair,_ Harry thought to himself.

“Now, are you ready to talk rationally? I apologize for silencing you, but nothing else has seemed to work. The constant muttering I can accept, but the shouting must cease, Severus.” Minvera could be quite demanding.

Again, Snape’s head nodded barely in assent. She waved her wand once more and then Snape hummed one note to test his voice.

“Minerva, I really must ask that you remove Potter from the office whilst we have this discussion. There are things I …”

“Why not?” Harry couldn’t help himself.

“That,” the portrait sneered, “is not up to discussion. You are clearly not a headmaster of this school and therefore…”

“Oh, come now, Severus,” Albus Dumbledore cut in. “Harry here is more than welcome to stay. After all he did commission your portrait.”

Snape’s face fell into incredulity. “He…what?”

“I thought you deserved a portrait here in the Headmaster’s office, so I got Dean Thomas to do it,” Harry said, licking his lips. “And it’s quite a good.”

“Thomas? You had Thomas paint me?”

“He’s decided to pursue art, so he offered to do your portrait.”

“He offered?”

“Well, not so much offered. I actually had to talk him into it. And he needed the money, so …”

“He did it for the money?”

Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “That’s not the point. I wanted someone who knew you, someone who could capture your personality, your…”

“And so you hired a fellow Gryffindor. How typical. No wonder if feel petulant and petty all the time.”

“You feel petulant?” Harry asked, amazed.

“Severus, you’re a two-dimensional image,” Dumbledore said, blue eyes twinkling. “We cannot feel emotions.”

“Speak for yourself, you old coot,” Snape said indignantly. “I feel like I need a drink. I feel like I want to reach out of this…prison and strangle Potter’s pretty little neck. I feel like I want to scream bloody murder….”

“He’s been doing well enough at that,” muttered one of the portraits behind Harry…

“…But of course I cannot because I am nothing more than a two-dimensional creation of oil and pigment. Something I did not every wish. And yet it has been done quite against my wishes, so excuse ME if I’m feeling more Than A BIT. PETULANT!!”

Harry looked to his old Headmaster for understanding, but even the elderly man was shaking his head in amusement.

Snape snorted and crossed his arms.

“Oh, come now, Severus. What’s really got your knickers in a twist here?” Albus said.

Snape again snorted.

After several minutes of snorting and glowering, Harry sighed in exasperation. “Look. I don’t know what to do….”

“You can take my portrait off this wall and destroy it,” Snape said finally. “That’s what you can do.”

Several portraits around gasped. “He cannae do that,” the portrait of Dexter Fortescue said. “You were a dutiful headmaster…”

“I was NOT dutiful in any sense of the word,” roared Snape. “I was a PUPPET. I was placed here at the whim of a madman, disposing the rightful headmaster, or in this case, headmistress of her position.”

“Now, Severus,” Minerva chided, “we all know…” that

“The Castle didn’t even recognize me as the headmaster,” he continued. “I never OCCUPIED the office. How could I have ever been considered the Headmaster if the CASTLE didn’t accept me?”

“Oh, that,” Albus chuckled. “Actually, the castle did accept you as Headmaster. I just overrode the charms that controlled it.” He leant over, touching his nose. “Ancient magic, my dear boy. That, and I didn’t relish the thought of your Death Eater compatriots mucking about in the private library.”

“We all know you did your absolute best whilst Headmaster, office or no,” Minerva added.

“Minerva,” Snape began, his eyes growing wild with incredulity. “Minerva, I was the hand tool of the Dark Lord. I followed his commands--”

“You followed the commands of the Ministry,” Harry said.

“Shut it, Potter. What do you know of it?” Snape shot back. “I did nothing to try to educate the Muggle-born students. I did not stop those bastards, the Carows, when they punished students. I—“

“Severus, were any of the students murdered by the Carows?” Albus Dumbledore interjected.

Snape’s mouth drew into a thin line. “No, but—“

“Did you or did you not, at every turn, conceal the existence of the outlaw student group called ‘Dumbledore’s Army’?” Dumbledore continued.

“But—“

“Did you on more than one occasion conceal the activities of Neville Longbottom from those who would mean him harm?”

Severus looked down, the curtain of shiny hair falling about his face, but Harry saw that the hair swayed as the man in the portrait shook his head. A warmth burst in Harry’s soul.

“Indeed, did you not encourage other students to join Mr. Longbottom in his clandestine activities?”

“Of course not.” That brought a glare to Snape’s face.

“Ah, but you did nothing to _dis-courage_ it either.” Dumbledore smiled.

Snape sighed. “Maybe I should have.”

Minerva gasped. “You cannot mean such a thing! Severus, you turned a blind eye at every single act of defiance against the Carows and every Death Eater who entered the castle by faculty and students. I know for a fact you had the house elves provide Mr. Longbottom and his friends with provisions in their darkest times. You even told Poppy where to look for him when he became ill that time.”

“Minerva, please. I am no—“

“Hero?” She drew herself up to her full height. “Severus Snape, that is precisely what you are!”

“STOP!” Snape roared, features contorted as much as the portraiture would allow. “Stop it now. I do not deserve your praise, nor your sappy titles. I should have…I should have done more to…”

“To save poor Charity?” Dumbledore said softly.

Snape again looked down. It was a full minute before he raised his head again, his face now a smooth, pale mask, save for the crease between his eyes. “Yes,” he whispered.

“Severus, you will listen to me,” Dumbledore continued. “This is war. In war, people die. In war, some are sacrificed. Yes, it is a tragedy that Charity Burbage was caught in that, and yes, it is a tragedy she died and she was a sacrifice. But she, more than anyone, knew the danger she placed herself when she continued to teach here, and most especially, when she continued her advocacy of Muggle-born students within the Ministry. She went toe-to-toe with Dolores Umbridge many times, especially when that monstrous decree was passed. She forcefully opposed it, appearing at the Ministry daily. She knew she was making herself a target in her defense of Muggles before the corrupt Ministry. _She accepted the risks_ , Severus. She and I discussed this, many times. She discussed it many times with Minerva and other members of the staff. She knew what she was doing. She knew she could do no other.”

Snape’s face was still, though the worry line lessened. “I should have—“

“Saved her? Defended her? Could you have done anything to save poor Charity without blowing your cover?” Dumbledore said forcefully.

“I should have—“

“No. You should not have.”

Snape sagged. His portrait self settled into the straight-back chair Dean had so helpfully painted and hid his face in his hand.

For several minutes, no one said anything. Harry began to wonder if the portraits had all wandered off to their other ones, they were so silent. But he looked around and saw that each and every frame held its subject, albeit still.

“Severus Snape,” a wheezy voice came from the opposite wall, “I wish to address you.”

Everyone stirred as Phineas Nigellus Black spoke. “Severus Snape, we are of the House of Slytherin. We are the only two to have ever held the office of Headmaster of this school, and I now address you as a fellow Slytherin and your equal.”

Snape raised his head from his hand but made no effort to stand or come forward to fill the frame.

“Severus, you served this school adequately. Classes were held. Your faculty were supported in the course of their endeavors. Children of witches and wizards were sheltered, fed, and educated. And even though I have in the past opposed the admission of Muggle-born students into the school, I have somewhat moderated that opinion. Was it the best of times? No, of course not. Even I, a Slytherin, through and through, thought Lord Voldemort to be a maniacal and misguided wizard. And yet, you continued to serve this school, no matter where your political loyalties did or did not lie, whether you perceive that you were or were not the legitimate head of this school. The fact of the matter is that you carried out the office of Headmaster.”

“Hear, hear!” several portraits muttered in support.

“But I was only in office for ten months, and I left it in a cowardly fashion,” Snape insisted.

“You were doing what I had asked you to do,” Dumbledore said.

“To get Voldemort to come after me to do me in,” Harry said.

Snape looked incredulously at him. “And yet still you were the one to sponsor my portrait.”

“Oh, Professor Dumbledore explained it all to me when I died,” Harry said with a shrug. “Or, when I didn’t exactly die—“

“No, no. You died,” Dumbledore said.

“Anyway, I came back, finished the git off, and well, you know, I’ve been living,” Harry finished. “And there are no hard feelings.”

Snape raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, I have a few lingering issues, beginning with the fact that you hated me which I totally did not deserve. Most of the time.”

The eyebrow went up higher.

“And yes, my dad was a complete arse to you.”

The smirk returned.

“But you were an arse, too.”

“Indeed. As were you.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Good god, Snape, I was a teenager. I still am!”

“Hmm.”

He hesitated. “Sooo…are you okay with being a portrait?”

“No. I need a place to go to escape the…oppressive atmosphere from time to time.”

Dumbledore’s remarkably blue eyes twinkled. “I do believe I drive him a bit mad,” he confided.

“Hardly, Albus,” Snape said.

“Well, actually,” Harry said, “I did think of that.”

“What? An escape from this two-dimensional hell?”

“No. Sorry. You’re committed to this existence,” Harry said. “But there is an out.”

Severus’s eyes widened. “There’s another portrait?”

Harry grinned. “Yep. Can you feel it?”

Severus grew still and then closed his eyes. “Yes. I can.”

“Then go there.”

Severus walked to the right and slid away. He returned several minutes later. “I believe I shall just stay here.”

“Why?” Harry asked.

Severus stopped. “Where is that portrait located, Potter?”

“Where do you think it is?”

He stayed silent. And glared.

Harry grinned again. “C’mon! It’s not so bad.”

“Potter.”

“Well, I need to get back to the office,” Harry said breezily. “Professor. Headmaster. Distinguished headmasters…” Harry nodded to the portraits.

“Potter…”

Murmurs of farewell filled the room. “My dear boy, come back and see us again, why don’t you?” Dumbledore said. “I so enjoy it when we can talk.”

“Potter!”

“I’ll be sure to come back sometime soon, then,” Harry said. “Bye.”

“POTTER!”

Harry turned to Severus’s portrait. “I look forward to seeing you again, too, sir.”

“POTTER!!”

*~*  



End file.
